Accord Preserves Federal School-Meals Guarantee

After several days of negotiations, Senate leaders prevailed late
last week and preserved--at least temporarily--the guarantee of a
federally funded school meal for every child who qualifies for one.

House Republicans have pushed hard for turning control of
child-nutrition programs over to the states in the form of block grants
and limiting spending on the school-meals programs.

"This is a real reaffirmation of 50 years of bipartisan commitment
to the nation's schoolchildren," said Edward Cooney, the deputy
director of the Food Research and Action Center, a Washington-based
advocacy group.

But lawmakers did agree to some subsidy cuts, and the delight
school-nutrition advocates said they felt late last week may be
short-lived.

The proposed changes in the school-meals programs are included in a
huge budget-reconciliation bill, hammered out last week by a
House-Senate conference committee, that would amend an array of
entitlement programs to help balance the federal budget. (See story,
this page.)

The bill's child-nutrition provisions would save nearly $6 billion
over seven years by cutting subsidy levels and changing eligibility
rules.

The measure would freeze inflation adjustments for school-meals
reimbursements at 1995 levels through the 1998-99 school year, and
would also lower reimbursements to some family-day-care homes that
serve middle- and upper-income children.

Immigrant Exclusion

School-nutrition advocates were especially worried about language.
that would disqualify illegal-immigrant children and some legal
immigrants from receiving free or reduced-price meals. Those provi-
sions could place a considerable administrative burden on schools,
which presumably would have to determine which students fell into the
excluded categories, said David Super, the general counsel at the
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank here.

But state and local governments could opt to pay for meals for those
children, said a spokeswoman for Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham,
R-Calif., the chairman of a subcommittee that oversees child
nutrition.

Overall, the reductions in spending were not "Draconian," said
Marshall Matz, the legislative counsel of the American School Food
Service Association.

"In the current context of the size of the deficit and the size of
the cuts being made to other programs," Mr. Matz said, "we're feeling
it's a pretty fair response and one that shouldn't cause significant
disruption to the school-lunch program."

The decision not to make a nutrition block grant part of the
reconciliation bill took some observers by surprise. As late as the
middle of last week, they had been told that the conferees had agreed
to an optional block grant for states.

House Republicans had pushed a plan that in its first year would
allow 22 states to apply for block grants capped at a fixed amount of
funding. All 50 states could apply in the next year. Funding for those
states would grow at a modest average of 4.5 percent a year over seven
years.

The reconciliation bill that the House and Senate were preparing to
begin floor debate on last week does not include a nutrition block
grant. But budget rules may force congressional leaders to move some of
the bill's welfare-reform provisions into a separate measure, which
could also carry the school-lunch plan. In addition, President Clinton
has promised to veto the reconciliation package, which would force
lawmakers to draft a new version. (See story, page 16.)

And House members insist that the proposal is very much alive.

Indeed, Rep. Bill Goodling, R-Pa., the chairman of the House
Economic and Educational Opportunities Committee, and Rep. Cunningham
issued news releases claiming that the Senate leadership had agreed to
the optional block grant.

'Optional' Block Grant

However, a spokesman for Sen. Richard G. Lugar, R-Ind., the chairman
of the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee, which has
jurisdiction over nutrition programs in the Senate, said that was not
true.

Observers say Mr. Goodling has been especially adamant about the
block-grant plan. A longtime supporter of school-meals programs, Mr.
Goodling had followed orders from the House leadership last winter and
shepherded through the controversial House bill, which drew an
avalanche of criticism and unfavorable media attention. (See Education
Week, March 29, 1995.)

The Senate later voted to maintain federal control of the programs,
and some aides said the negative response to the House bill was a
factor in that decision. (See Education Week, June 7, 1995.)

The question of whether to fund school meals through block grants
had been a big sticking point in House-Senate negotiations.

Sources familiar with the negotiations said senators questioned
whether an optional block grant would satisfy a Senate rule that bars
from reconciliation bills any provision that does not reduce spending.
Senate Republicans said the idea did not have enough Senate support to
win a vote overriding that rule, nutrition advocates said.

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